


Day 101

by gbMS



Series: Days [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-21 23:43:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12468620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gbMS/pseuds/gbMS





	1. Mostly Healthy

Rose woke up to an otherwise empty bed and the thick, unnecessary blanket pulled up along her side, covering her head. The shade more necessary during the past evening, but the warmth was becoming oppressive. She slowly blinked her eyes open and slid the blanket down. Her mascara had sloughed off in bits onto her face and onto the pillow as she hadn’t had the wherewithal to remove it before her temporary incapacitation. She picked herself up to sitting, blinking at light streaming from the windows, now unfiltered as she'd moved the thick blanket and her eyes narrowed more in adjustment. The headache aspect had passed, but now she was coping with brain-fog and post-headache bodily hangover of soreness, muscles aching from their previous tension.

She stretched to try and work her muscles out. One of her arms invaded the obviously slept-in space beside her, now vacated and cold. Rose looked at the spot, not really knowing what to think beyond it's unexplained emptiness as her eyes struggled against readjusting to the bright, unwavering, and fairly irritating light.

“You need to stop being _highly_ improbable.” Said the Doctor’s voice behind her. She blinked exaggeratedly until the world came slightly into focus and rolled her head to the other side toward the voice. Her still sleepy eyes managed to come into focus immediately when they fell on the familiar cross-legged figure standing propped on the door frame with his arms folded.

“Still not sure what I did, I seem to be very good at the improbable, though.” She yawned as she tried to finish her thought, “then again, I guess I’m never really sure what I did when you say stuff like that.” She smiled tiredly as the Doctor walked in, leaning to her tired face and greeting her with an oddly exuberant morning kiss. Rose propped up her torso on a pillow against their headboard and sat up, curling her legs inward to allow him space to sit in front of her on the bed.

“Do you hear that?” He started, talking a seat where she had just moved her legs. She raised an eyebrow as he went quiet, listening for nose but finding herself listening to silence. The look on her face was clear that she was unsure of hearing anything, he put his hand on her sheet-covered knees. “A noise, like light static. Someone playing with a radio. Started about 5 AM. Quiet buzz. Light buzz, tiny bit of laughter. Tells me you are likely one of the most improbable creatures in my near millennia of years of continually running into improbable creatures.”

“Don’t hear a buzz, Doctor, just my stomach rumbling,” she rubbed her eyes with both hands, still attempting to shake sleep from her.

“It was you. The buzz. Little bit of the giggles, maybe giggles. Feels like giggles. It’s your synapses trying to find another mind, something on the same psychometric wavelength alerting other telepaths. That little bit of static telling my mind that your mind is there and on and open—"

Rose's lips solidified into a straight line. “’S not human, yeah?” He suddenly caught wind of the worry in her, and took her hand.

“Not _strictly_ , no.” He said, deciding not to sugar coat, he smirked a little as he gripped her hand reassuringly hoping she’d be able to sense his excitement and devotion through his touch if not his voice alone, “It’s _impossible_.” Rose narrowed her eyes in playful frustration when that word popped out of his mouth, “Humans can’t do that, though there have been people with slight telepathic tendencies or mediums.”

“Like Gwenyth?” she almost chirped, perking up a bit hopefully.

“Yes and no,” he said, she shook her head in amusement as he gave his usual answer. “She was more of a medium, different thing. At least I think it’s a different thing, likely different. Gwenyth was raised on the Rift, it altered her just a small amount making her more susceptible to receiving the thoughts of others. Another woman, years and years ago, grew up beside a Time Fissure and she was considered a witch because she saw things and knew things. So receiving thoughts from other people is an alteration humans are capable of, you, however, have had something stronger than the rift and more powerful undiluted version of a fissure living directly in your own mind for years and are projecting your own thoughts and feelings and experiences,” He was slowly becoming more animated and excited, Rose barely being able to retain the words flying from his mouth at what felt like breakneck speed this early to her. “Like the radio. A HAM radio! Walkie-talkie! Someone gave you a radio in your head—well, you _grew_ one really—and now everyone with a radio can hear the frequency registering, you just happen to be around people who have don't have radios. And it’s even clearer when you came back to consciousness, like humming over a bad announcement system. And we'll have to teach you to shield that, cover it or silence it so that you won’t be able to broadcast to anyone else who manages to have any telepathic tendencies can hear you’re there. Especially because you're so new to it.”

Rose was just blinking at him. Her eyes ringed with sleep or worry, her face impassive. She blinked tired in quick succession before using the back of her hand to rub her eye, some back from her eyes running off onto the back of her palm.

“That’s great, Doctor, but you know I’m not hearing half of what you’re saying, just _I’m-so-clever I’m-so-clever I’m-so-clever_.” Rose yawned and stretched her arms straight above her head, only remembering to bed them slightly as they hit the walls, “My human ears just won’t work without my morning infusion of free radicals and tannin despite my improbable brain ” The Doctor got off the bed easily and put a fist on his hip.

“It’s nearly two PM, Rose!” he grinned, finally in a position to admonish her for sleeping in for the first time in the years since their initial separation. “That’s afternoon, hardly morning--”

“Blah-blah-blah.” She waved the rest of his ramble off, she’d heard it near daily years ago on the TARDIS. “Tea, yeah?” she smiled weakly, fresh out of her consciousness fog, taking his out stretched hand and sliding off the bed to stand as he backed away to give her legs space to stand. He helped pull her up to standing and smiled at her. She couldn’t help but tiredly smile back at his goofy face and excited smile. “I won’t understand anything until tea.”

Her long undershirt-wearing form now standing directly before him, he couldn't help but stare at her. Hair slightly mussed, eyes baggy and mascara rimming them from lack of removal before sleeping, smeared a bit by her incessant eye-rubbing this morning. It likely wouldn't have been quite as noticeable if there weren't still there residue of her migraine, slightly reddened eyes, pale skin. She was still pale, not as pallid as she had been, but still a bit pale. Honestly, it was the least attractive he’d seen her be, and simultaneously the most adorable Rose yet. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, planting a quick kiss on her lips before smiling brightly and staring into her light brown eyes with glee. He lifted his eyebrows quickly twice. “Kettle’s hot.”

“Now _that_ I understood.”


	2. Tea

Hot kettle meant he could set the clock. Nine minutes until fully coherent Rose Tyler. She needed to pour, sip, mix the same amount of additives into her cup as she always did, check it with a quick sip before deciding that yes, her morning tea was just as good as it had been the other seven thousand times she made it exactly the same way, and then actually drink it. Drinking it had a ritual in itself, including sipping, burning her tongue a bit, blowing, the kind of blow that was both forceful and delicate and made him go off on another thought tangent completely that was not entirely helpful right now, before putting the mug on her bottom lip and gently tipping it into her mouth.

So _twelve_ minutes later, when the first cup had sunk in and she’d already started on her second, he could further address the hum that only became clearer as the rest of Rose Tyler had woken up. If that weren’t enough proof of her consciousness, during the second cup she'd managed to change from her usual barely coherent slump into a dining chair to being sat up on the kitchen counter, leisurely sipping from her mug with her bum by the toaster and her legs carefully swinging in front of one of the lower cabinets. The color, he noted, had begun fading from her rimmed eyes and gaining it's rightful place in her face, looking more like the Rose Tyler he knew.

“It’s still not _clear_ necessarily it's just clear- _er_.” The Doctor tried to explain as if he was continuing a conversation they’d already been having, likely because it had been heavily in his mind and he assumed it had been the same in hers. He watched her moving legs slow as she thought before she spoke.

“An’ that’s good, yeah?” she blinked, keeping her tea in one hand and straightening the other beneath it, effectively crossing her arms in curiosity as she sat on the kitchen counter. She raised her mug to her mouth and sipped again, given the state of smacking her lips together one could only assume the time to blow the hot tea was near.

“Yes and no. It means your mind is getting stronger, but I still need to teach you to not project it so… loudly. Generally it’s looked down upon to shout in crowded rooms, but it’s even more uncouth to yell in a virtually empty one. It’s like trading secrets with a person on a loud speaker.”

Rose kept her mouth by the hot mug, raising an eyebrow to him as she blew the steam off the top. Her cooling breath had a bit of barely audible chuckle to it. “Are you calling me rude?”

Half the Doctor’s mouth pulled in a smirk, “Years of exposure, bound to rub off.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile, one hand joining the other on her mug. “How are you gonna teach me that? ‘S not like I even know how I’m doing it in the first place. Can’t just leave little notes ‘round the bedroom for that one, can ya?”

“Well,” he drew out the word, thinking and putting off having to say it, “the potential is there for you to have one of these expanding experiences again—"

“Which means more mind hangovers.” She nodded, showing her vague understanding with her dumbed-down version, though apparently neither of them needed it.

“So we’d want to either walk you baby step by baby step through the process or try and get it all done in one...”

“…Either very slowly or very quickly.” Rose sighed, “Which means it’ll be neither.”

“Yeah.” The Doctor admitted, rubbing his neck for a second and exhaling. “Opened a can of worms, it seems. Big can, several slimy things crawling all in your brain.”

“an’ thanks for _that_ image.” Rose scrunched her nose as she took a final tilt from the mug, draining it.

“How's your headache?” the Doctor asked as nonchalantly as he could, though he looked ready to pull out the sonic at a moment's notice.

“’s gone. Dunno if it was the sleep or the tea, but 's gone. Need to take a look?” her eyes almost glittered as she put her mug down and slid off the counter, “Could use a snog.”

“A snog?” he laughed.

“Bein' in my head seems to make you very appreciative of my lips.” Rose said to him as she rinsed her cup quickly and put it on the side of the sink.

“I have _no_ idea what you mean.” The Doctors straightened the collar of his shirt unnecessarily and sniffed. Rose turned around and put a hand on her hip.

“Yes you do. I've been in your head, Mister.” She leaned up to his ear, _“You like it.”_ She said teasingly, backing away. The Doctor slipped his arm around her waist before she could get away.

“Can’t really blame me, can you? New car, banana bread, and a potential telepathic connection with my beautiful, live-in Sweetheart in a 24 hour time span? Exciting.”

“Yeah, _exciting_ ,” she said a little sadly, almost laughing at herself. “Runnin', saving universes, meetin' new people, discovering a new anythin', that's excitin'.” She pat his shoulder and smirked, “Those things are mostly _‘I’ve not had a TARDIS for three months_ ' excitin'."

“Exciting like this isn't something I planned on. No TARDIS meant things. Slow path, Having to get a job, Carpets and doors, _Domestic_?” He enunciated each syllable of that word particularly, “ But this… I wasn’t expecting _this_.”

“Oh so you _expected_ a whole lot of things you don't like—" she began to snark.

“You’ve always been a bunch of things I love, Rose.” She could help that her mouth twitch a little at that, they had seen together, _properly_ together for a few months, but it was still a bit rare and elating when he used that word. “Brave, caring, loyal, adventurous, _little_ bit accident prone,”—she huffed at that one— “and now this? It may as well be Christmas, Rose. Christmas times a _million_. A million _billion_. A million billion and _seventy two_.”

“Flatterer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I love tea. Hush.


	3. Training

“We want you to stop announcing yourself, and quickly. I can go in there and help… fortify the levees, so to speak, but you’re going to have to start building up those on your own at some point. Keep it all in and not flooding nearby telepaths. Don’t really mind that it’s me, but given that I’m not 100% sure I'm there only one of this planet who can hear you better safe than sorry.” Rose rolled her eyes and trod toward the sofa, falling into a seat with a frustrated plop. She rubbed her forehead.

“So I'm a radio, a thick balloon, a shouty rude person, and now a floody body of water. Any more weird metaphors I can be?” she pinched her mouth to the side, fanning her hand out as she held her head.

“Um. Well,” he sat beside her gently, letting his body bump against hers, “for your brother you’re also a talking Daisy and a fairy nightlight if that helps.” The Doctor smirked, pulling her to him as he leaned back and got comfortable on the sofa. She leaned back against him, looking up to his face.

“Strangely, no, none of those help.” She smirked, thwapping him gently on the chest before she fully got comfortable. “C'mon, then. Whaddo I do?”

“Don't even have to do much. You just picture walls. See?” He closed his eyes for a moment, opening one eye to make sure she was watching before peeling open the other one with a grin, “Easy. Picture walls.” Rose exhaled a large breathe, closing her eyes and settling her body in for the long haul, trying to get to an ease where she wouldn’t feel the need to fidget. “Some walls are made of plaster or wood or stone whatever,” he quietly continued to her statue-like form, “but what you picture will equate to how strong they are. It’ll take some time to make strong ones. The lighter the material is the easier it is to put up but the easier it is to break in.”

“It’s like, Oh! It’s like the three little pigs.” The Doctor excitedly jumped in his seat with the perfect analogy.

“Really?” Rose's brow furrowed immediately, her eyes opening soon after with her eyebrows still crinkled as she looked up to him slightly annoyed, “A Big Bad Wolf reference _now_?”

“It helps illustrate!” He tried to defend as he smirked. Rose shook her head and laid it down against his shoulder, still a bit perturbed as he continued. “The straw house the wolf gets in, the stick house the wolf gets in, but the stone house it doesn’t.”

“The Wolf is already in, Doctor. Doubt this would be an issue if she wasn't.” Rose closed her eyes again, slowly drawing her eyes tight as she tried to do what she was told.

“Alright, well then you’re building a cage for the wolf so it doesn’t get out and howl at the whole village.” The Doctor was slightly amused by his use of metaphor and it was showing in his voice despite the seriousness of the topic. His joviality, as usual, was rubbing off on her.

“Okay,” she said with more relaxed closed eyes, “Walls. I can imagine walls.” She was silent for a moment, the Doctor absently playing with the ends of her hair. Rose opened one eye and looked up at him from his shoulder, “Will I need to put in a door?” He shook his head, eyebrow raised slightly for only a moment. “How’re you gonna get in otherwise?”

“If you want me in I'll be in.” the Doctor shrugged his non-occupied shoulder. Rose closed her open eye again, smirking.

“S a bit cheeky, that.” She clamped her lips in the smirk, keeping her eyes closed and the smile seemed to assert itself to what seemed to be the current default setting of her face.

“Oi, Miss Tyler!” The Doctor mock-scolded.

“ _You_ said it.” She shrugged, her closed eyelids betraying the smile in her eyes.

“It’s not wrong either way.” The Doctor mumbled cheekily. Rose spat out a quick laugh.

“You!” she hit him again with the back of her hand, “Makin’ walls here, do you mind? Seems important so I don’t flood or shout at random people or somethin’.”

“I can help.” The Doctor wiggled his eyebrows. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know he did that, or to gently hit him again. She lifted her head off his shoulder.

“Aren't I supposed to do this myself? ‘s my heavy lifting an' all.”

“Well, not to brag—” Rose let out a single laugh at that statement, which he promptly ignored, “—but you have a mental heavy weight here.”

“You also get things off high shelves.” She said with closed eyes.

“My talents are rich and varied.” He said a bit haughtily, causing her to huff a laugh.

“You have many uses.” She laughed before calming herself with a smile. It was hard to shake off the general happiness of the two and concentrate on the task at hand.

He was trying to remain impassive about this, his elation that it was possible and the theory that she could control it battling for dominance in his emotions, occasionally joined by the thought of the sheer improbability—no, sod it, _impossibility_ —of it all.   
It was working, she was slowly getting quieter. The buzz and laughter in the back ground of his mind was noticeable, but barely, and likely only because he was concentrating on it so hard. Her mental signature was quieting by the moment. She was doing either a very, very good job or imploding very slowly before his eyes.   
Imploding people don’t generally breathe or giggle or open one eye to watch you silently while you overthink situations.

…and now she was staring with that _‘I’m fine you daft alien'_ look stuck on her face again. She huffed another breath and smiled dryly at him.

“Well. Come get a look,” she said, slipping her hand down to his as she pulled him to face her. “I cleared the whole weekend with Torchwood needin' me an' we didn’t have anythin' planned, so I guess it’s a headaches an’ snoggin' weekend.”

“Just adding headaches to the agenda then.”

“Kissin's a plan now?”

“Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was supposed to be another day directly proceeding this one, but I'm not happy with it. I have days after it more fleshed out and less aggravating, so I may skip it and add it in later when I'm more satisfied.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a shorter day. Not a very exciting day, I think.
> 
> (May skip around, my mind isn't exactly working in order lately.)


End file.
